I’ll be bursting into song on my couch

Fox and NBC are both developing musical quiz shows. The Fox show is called Off the Charts and will feature a house band that plays portions of songs. Contestants will be asked to fill in the next line of lyrics. On NBC, a similar show called The Great American Singing Bee will require contestants to “sing in the blanks” after hearing partial song lyrics.

Sounds kinda familiar, no?

Both shows also sound a lot like the board game Songburst, which is one of my faves. It can be very frustrating, however, to have to pinpoint the lyrics verbatim, and people can get very upset when they’re wrong. I was nearly tarred and feathered the time I brilliantly finished this one:

I’m just a poor boy, nobody loves me …

It’s not my fault some people don’t know the lyrics to “Bohemian Rhapsody”!

Late last year there were reports that CBS was developing a new version of Name That Tune, with Donny Osmond as host. If they do, here’s hoping one of the tunes that needs naming is “Puppy Love,” just so we can watch Donny’s big face turn bright red.

I know I’ll be watching all of these sing-along shows (until one of them wins out, because I doubt there’s room for more than one show of this sort on TV). And by “watching,” I mean “shrieking lyrics in a way that scares my girlfriend.”